Anyone who played basketball for Harry Larrabee [1979-86 & 1991-2000] would think it unfair to categorize him as merely a coach. For the better part of two decades, Larrabee proved to be infinitely more valuable than his head-coaching numbers of 167 victories, three conference titles, three NCAA Tournaments, and eight wins over Division I teams.
In fact, his technical titles of ‘coach,’ ‘administrator’ and ‘athletic director’ could just as accurately have been described as ‘teacher,’ ‘ambassador,’ and ‘leader.’ Larrabee came to UAA as a men’s basketball assistant in just the program’s third year of NCAA Division II play.
Two seasons later, the Shelbyville, Ind., native assumed the head job and quickly proved his considerable skill with a 21-9 record, the 1982 Great Northwest Conference title, and UAA’s first NCAA Tournament berth in any sport. The 1985-86 season saw Larrabee’s club accumulate a then- school record 22 wins, an 8-0 GNC mark, and a Great Alaska Shootout win over D-I power Missouri.
Larrabee took the head-coaching job at D- I Southwest Texas State in April 1986, leaving the Seawolf program on solid footing. However, in 1991, when UAA went looking for its next men’s coach, Larrabee felt the calling and reprised his former role. The Seawolves continued to excel under his guidance, posting back-to- back 20-win seasons and another postseason bid.
Larrabee was just two games into 1993-94 campaign when he stepped down from head-coaching duties following a health scare and assumed the title of Special Assistant to the Athletic Director and, eventually, Senior Associate AD. In the meantime, however, fate would call him in yet another direction.
With an unexpected December head coaching vacancy, Larrabee returned to the bench, but this time for the Seawolf women. Taking over a 1-8 squad, he managed to get five more victories that year, and quickly returned the program to respectability with 14-13 and 16-13 records the ensuing seasons.
Larrabee became Athletic Director in July 1998 and helped the department through period of major transition. Although he stepped down as women’s coach after the 1998-99 campaign, Larrabee worked to revive the program’s prestigious Northern Lights Invitational – a victim of budget cuts – by adding women’s games to the Great Alaska Shootout.
In August 2000, Larrabee stepped down from the AD’s chair to once again return to coaching, but this time at his hometown high school in Indiana. At Shelbyville, Larrabee has rebuilt the Golden Bears – from an 8-15 record his first season – into one of the top large-school programs in the state, topping out with a 23-1 mark in 2005-06.
Larrabee stepped down from the SHS boys bench to take over the girls program. Larrabee graduated with honors in 1975 from the University of Texas, where he was a two-time All-Southwest Conference guard and one of five players named to the Longhorns’ All-Decade Team for the 1970s.
Upon graduation, he became one of just seven NCAA student-athletes chosen for a postgraduate scholarship that year, and went on to earn his master’s in education from Southwest Texas State in 1977.
Larrabee and his wife Betsy are the parents of three adult children – Scott, and twins Sarah and Todd – and two grandchildren, Bryant and Baylor.Â
